Here we discuss sex and politics, loudly, no apologies hence "screeds" and "attitude."

12/17/2013

revenge's mini-finale (the bad)

from monday, that's Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts "The Selfie" and a day before, on sunday, 'revenge' aired it's fall season finale and returns in january.

charlotte remains the worst.

remember how she brought sarah back into daniel's life - his college girlfriend he nearly killed in a drunk driving accident? remember she did that despite the fact that her brother daniel was supposed to be marrying emily in just a few weeks.

remember how she went around insulting emily to her mother victoria?

and to emily's face?

and how as late as 48 hours before the wedding she was gleeful about breaking emily and daniel up?

now she's all 'i love you too' and acting like emily's her best friend.

and the actress is too limited to make sense of any of this.

at least when charlotte was on drugs, the bad acting made sense.

in my next post (tonight), i'll focus on the good. and the good news there is that charlotte was the only bad thing about the mini-finale.

Monday, December 16, 2013. Chaos and violence continue, bold attacks
include seizing a municipal building and a police building, another
journalist is murdered in Iraq over the weekend, the US Congress is --
and has been -- on to Nouri, we explore how the knowledge that Nouri is a
thug is a bi-partisan awareness, and more.

"Jail breaks, massive suicide attacks and assassinations are the norm.
Not since 2008 has it been this bad," declared US House Rep Ted Poe
declared last week of Iraq (in a Congressional hearing we'll note later
in this snapshot). And those two sentences are even more true today as a
series of spectacular attacks slammed Iraq leaving many dead and
injured. Russia Today reports 70 dead from the violence. Deutsche Welle observes, "This has been the worst year in terms of violence that Iraq has seen since 2007, when
sectarian violence
pushed the country to the brink of civil war. United Nations figures put
the death toll from November alone at 659. More than 6,000 have been
killed since the start of 2013." BBC News offers,
"Correspondents say the attacks show how insurgents are now targeting
symbols of government authority on a near daily basis." AP called today "the bloodiest day in violence in Iraq in nearly two months."

All Iraq News notes
suicide bombers took control of the Beiji police station -- 2 blew
themselves up at the gates and 2 more entered the police station and
took control of it. National Iraqi News Agency reports 7 police officers were killed and four more were injured in the initial attacks. In the process, All Iraq News notes, all prisoners being held at the police station were freed. However, Ghazwan Hassan (Reuters) quotes
Major Salih al-Qaisi stating, "We believe the attack was aimed at
freeing detainees who are being held in the building next door. All the
militants were killed before they reached the police department
building where the detainees are held." NINA adds that "security forces stormed the police station and killed the two suicide bombers who were inside." Alsumaria reports a curfew has been imposed upon the city.

Also NINA notes
assailants in "military uniforms stormed the building of the Municipal
Council in the center of Tikrit" using a car bombing as the initial
assault. Alsumaria states the bombing was near the building and, following it, the municipal building was stormed. All Iraq News has two suicide bombers detonating in the building. NINA states security forces stormed the building killing all the assailants and freeing the hostages. EFE reports, "A city official, two police officers and three of the attackers died in
the assault on Tikrit's city hall, a police spokesman told Efe." Al-Shorfa explains the city official was "local council member Hamid al-Ujaily" and that four of his bodyguards were injured while 1 was killed. AFP notes, "Security forces also ordered all government employees in the city, including teachers, to go home for the day."

Iraq Body Count notes
27 violent deaths on Sunday and, through Sunday, 475 people died from
violence so far this month. Yesterday's violence included the murder of
another journalist. Press TV notes, "According to local media reports, Nawras
al-Nuaimi was shot on Sunday near her home in the Iraqi city of Mosul.
She was the fifth journalist killed in the violence-hit city since
October." Mu Xuequan (Xinhua) reports:Nawras al-Nuaimi, 20, got several shots in the head
when gunmen opened fire on her near her house in al-Jazaair neighborhood
in eastern Mosul, some 400 km north of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad,
the source told Xinhua.Nuaimi has been working as a presenter of TV programs in the local
Mosuliyah channel for five years, he said, adding that she was the
fourth journalist killed in Mosul since October and the 51st in Nineveh
province since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.

She may actually have been 19 -- Al Rafidayn reports she was born in 1994. AFP adds that six journalists have been killed in Iraq since October (with five in Mosul) and notes, "On
December 5, Kawa Germyani, the editor-in-chief of the news website
Rayel and a correspondent for the Kurdish- language newspaper Awene
, was killed outside his home in town of Kalar, south of the Kurdish
Iraqi city of Sulaymaniyah, the Committee to Protect Journalists said."

Reporters Without Borders is appalled by TV presenter Nawras al Nouaymi’s murder yesterday in Mosul, the capital of the northern province of Nineveh. Unidentified gunmen shot her near her home in the city’s eastern district of Al-Jazair.

Aged 19, she was a student at Mosul university’s media faculty and had worked as a presenter for satellite TV station Al-Mosuliya for the past five years.

“We are stunned by this latest murder and by the failure
of the local and national authorities to respond to the deadly campaign
against journalists in Iraq,” Reporters Without Borders said. “The
continuing violence and the impunity enjoyed by those responsible
constitute a major threat to freedom of information.

“We again urge the authorities to deploy all necessary
resources for independent investigations which do not rule out the
possibility of a link between these murders and the victims’ work as a
journalists, and which result in the perpetrators and instigators being
brought to justice.

"I had to change my place of
residence in Mosul and remain at my (new) home without leaving, after
the killings that affected a number of my colleagues," said journalist
Salim Fadhel, 30."My colleagues left Mosul for the Kurdistan
region with their families, or for outside Iraq," Fadhel said, referring
to the autonomous three-province region of northern Iraq where attacks
are relatively rare compared to the rest of the country."There is
a rumour in Mosul saying that armed groups issued a list of names of 40
journalists who will be eliminated by them," Fadhel added.

And it's why the violence is so bad, incidents like that. This is the
consensus the western media works to keep from you. They can yack
forever about 'al Qaeda in Iraq' but they can't tell you about how Nouri
al-Maliki, prime minister and chief thug of Iraq, brings on the
violence.

It is the consensus. It's the consensus in the US Congress, it's the
consensus among think tanks and NGOs. For example, Human Rights
Watch's Kenneth Roth Tweeted the following today:

That's why Nouri is in power right now. He didn't get a second term
from the voters, they didn't go for him which is why his State of Law
came in second in the 2010 parliamentary elections. The White House
gave him the second term in 2010. And Iraq has suffered ever since.

Here's the Brookings Institution's Kenneth M. Pollack:The problems began after Iraq's 2010 national elections. The elections themselves were
wonderful -- the best yet. Iraqis voted overwhelmingly for Ayad Allawi’s mostly-Sunni Iraqiya
and Maliki's overwhelmingly Shi'a State of Law coalitions, the two groups seen as most secular,
least sectarian and least tied to the militias. Of the two, Iraqiya garnered slightly more votes.
But Maliki refused to believe that he had lost, insisting that the vote had been rigged (perhaps by
the Americans, his aides claimed) and refusing to allow Allawi to take the first turn at forming a
government. Then he pressured Iraq's high court to rule that he could get the first shot at
forming a government, which deadlocked the entire political system. And the United States (and
the UN) went along and said nothing. Rather than insist that Allawi be given the first chance, as
is customary in most democracies and as was clearly what was best for Iraqi democracy. The
U.S. did nothing. Ten months of political backstabbing followed, and in the end, the Iranians
forced Moqtada al-Sadr to back Maliki, uniting the Shi'a behind him. At that point, the Kurds
fell into place, believing that the prime minister had to be a Shi'a, and Iraqiya's chances were
finished.
It was also a defeat for Iraqi democracy. The message that it sent to Iraq's people and politicians
alike was that the United States under the new Obama Administration was no longer going to
enforce the rules of the democratic road. Washington was not going to insist that the will of the
people win out. America was willing to step aside and allow Iraq's traditional political culture of
pay-offs, log-rolling, threats and violence to re-emerge to determine who would rule the country.
It undermined the reform of Iraqi politics and resurrected the specter of the failed state.

Pollack leaves a lot out in the above but you'll note that he does begin
to put some blame on the White House. They can't escape it forever.
And the best thing about the blame? It may mean the White House can't
steal the 2014 election (supposed to take place April 30th) for Nouri
this go round -- or at least not without getting called out.

We've got one more hearing to report on from last week. Thursday,
December 12th, there was a joint hearing held by the House Foreign
Affairs Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation and Trade and the
Subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa. For the first
Subcommittee, the Chair is Ted Poe and the Ranking Member is Howard
Berman. US House Rep Ileana Ros-Lehtinen is the Chair of the second
Subcommittee and US House Rep Ted Deutch is the Ranking Member.

The topic was al Qaeda in Iraq. We may explore that identification in
another snapshot. For now, we'll just note Pollack on the term:

Nevertheless, it is also important to recognize that AQI was actually
only one of many Sunni insurgent/terrorist/militia groups operating in
Iraq against the Shi'a, the Americans and to a lesser extent, the Kurds.
At the height of Iraq’s civil war, dozens of groups like the 1920s
Revolution Brigade, Ansar al-Sunnah, Jaysh al-Muhammad and Jaysh Rijal
al-Tariqa Naqshbandia (JRTN). Many, but not all, of these groups
embraced the same Salafist theology as AQI, but all of them espoused the
same virulent Sunni chauvinism. To a considerable extent, we have come
to use the term "AQI" as a shorthand term describing a wider range of
violent Sunni extremist groups.

Appearing before the two Subcommittees were Pollack, Jessica D. Lewis
(Institute for the Study of War), Michael Knights (Washington Institute
for Near East Policy and Daniel Byman (professor in the Security Studies
Program at Georgetown University).

We're going to note the hearing in at least two snapshots. Since the
topic was Iraq, we may end up doing more coverage of it than just two
snapshots.

Congress was highly resistant to Nouri al-Maliki when he met with them
in the last week of October. (Friday, November 1st, he went to the
White House and met with US President Barack Obama.) They're resistant
because they know Nouri's a thug.

They don't have to whore like Jane Arraf and other reporters do.

We're very critical of John Kerry's failures with regards to Iraq. So
much so that some e-mails complain about how Hillary got a pass. I
think you need to look at the reporting in January on Hillary's
testimony to Congress before you argue Hillary got a pass.

In terms of Iraq, Hillary wasn't over it. We noted that in real time.
US Vice President Joe Biden was supposed to be in charge but he really
couldn't go around War Hawk Samantha Power either (Power argued the
White House had to give Nouri a second term -- Barack went along with
her).

One good reason for Hillary not being over Iraq and for her making only
one visit to the country? Nouri al-Maliki hates her. He hates most
women, true. But Hillary talked what a thug and criminal he was in an
April 2008 Senate hearing. Nouri never forgot. Now Biden made similar
comments but spread out over time. He's also a man so Nouri's more
likely to go meek.

It is not just Democrats or just Republicans that know Nouri's a thug,
an abuser of human rights, a criminal. This is known in both parties of
Congress. And when I note that here, someone wants to whine that
that's just not true. Like Senator Barbara Boxer's public remarks
indicting Nouri have vanished?

From Thursday's hearing, we're first going to note two statements on Nouri.

Subcommittee Chair Ted Poe is a Republican. We don't usually note party
i.d. -- there are already enough harsh divisions in this country. But
to make sure everyone gets that both parties know Nouri is a thug and a
menace, we're going to do two party i.d.s.

Subcommittee Chair Ted Poe: Now he wants some help once again. He
talks out of both sides of his mouth while trying to cozy up to the
United States, he cozies up to the Iranians at the same time. Prime
Minister Maliki came here dragging the sack in November wanting more tax
payer money. He wanted attack helicopters and all sorts of advanced
equipment. But is that what he needs to go after al Qaeda? Does he
have other reasons for wanting that equipment? Maliki has centralized
power. alienated the Sunnis, brought back the Shi'ite hit squads. This
in part has allowed al Qaeda to return to be back in Iraq. What Maliki
needs is a new strategy to fight al Qaeda. This includes doing a better
job of reaching out to the Sunni population so that they feel that
Maliki represents all Iraqis, not just one group.

Alright. Ranking Member Brad Sherman is a Democrat. What does he think of Nouri?

Ranking Member Brad Sherman: And he wants American weapons. And his
biggest argument is that we should give him American weapons because
his enemies hate us. The problem is, his friends hate us too. And his
friends in Tehran are more dangerous to us than his enemies in Falluja.
Now Maliki's argument goes something like this: He holds office today
solely as a result of various actions taken by the United States -- some
of which were mistakes. And so therefore he is our product and
therefore we have to protect him and do whatever he wants. And so
therefore he is one of the good guys no matter who he allies himself
with today. The fact is, his allegiance to Tehran is only a little bit
less than Assad's allegiance to Tehran. But Maliki's government goes
something like this: Since he has been the beneficiary of a series of
American mistakes in the past, we have a legal duty to continue to make
mistakes on his behalf in the future. Uhm, if we're going to provide
him with weapons, there ought to be at least four conditions. The first
is that he start trying to reach a compromise with at least some
elements of the Sunni community. He's taken provocative actions against
Sunnis such as postponing elections in Sunni areas and forcing
prominent Sunni politicians out of the government. He shouldn't be
seeking the best deal he can for the Shi'ite community, he should be
seeking a peace that would benefit not only him but the United States.
And he needs to allow proper Sunni representation in his government.
Second, if he wants our weapons, he ought to pay for them. People
involved in foreign policy seem to be so focused on foreign policy that
whether we get paid for the weapons is a footnote. The fact is Iraq has
plenty of oil now, will have even more in the future. They've to
enough cash to pay for the weapons now and they can certainly borrow on
the international markets and, at very minimum, they can agree to pay us
later in cash or oil. Third, he's got to stop Iranian flights over his
air space into Syria. He'll say, 'Well then give me an airforce.' We
don't have to. All he has to do is authorize the Saudi, the Turkish or
the American airforce to ensure that his air space is not used by
Iranian thugs transiting to so that they can destroy and kill as many
innocent people and some non-innocent people in Syria. And finally he's
got to focus on the hostages of Camp Ashraf and the human rights of
those in Camp Hurriyah also known as Camp Liberty. These are
international responsibilities that he has. So if there is no
penetrating analysis, the argument will be: 'We created him, he seems
like a good guy, he's in trouble, therefore we give him weapons for
free.' That is the default position of our foreign policy

Get it? Criticism of Nouri is bi-partisan. It is not about who
controls the White House. Though Democrats were the most vocal of the
two groups back when Bully Boy Bush was in the White House, many
Republicans in Congress, especially in the Senate, were publicly
critical of Nouri and his thug ways.

And now we're going to note Kenneth Pollack's testimony:

Unfortunately, over the past two years, Iraq has taken a noticeable
turn for the worse, although
how bad things will get still remains uncertain. Our topic today, the
reemergence of al-Qaeda in
Iraq (AQI), is among the most visible and frightening manifestations of
Iraq's downward turn.
AQI has been one of the principal culprits in the worsening violence
across Iraq. In 2012, Iraq
experienced a 10 percent increase in violent civilian deaths. That was
the first annual increase
since 2006, prior to the so-called "surge." In 2013, Iraq may very well
experience a 100 percent
increase in violent civilian deaths over 2012. Thus, it is not an
exaggeration to say that violence
is multiplying in Iraq by orders of magnitude.
However, we need to recognize that the increasing violence in Iraq, and
the reemergence of
groups like AQI do not constitute Iraq's problems per se. They are
instead the symptoms of
those problems. They are the outward manifestations of deep-seated
structural conflicts and
unresolved differences among Iraq’s various constituencies. Although it
is not impossible to
mitigate or even resolve those underlying problems, they will not be
overcome easily, and few of
Iraq's political leaders are making the kind of effort that would be
needed to do so. Instead, most
of Iraq's leaders concentrate on achieving short-term tactical gains
against their rivals, often in
ways that exacerbate those problems rather than ameliorating them.
For this reason, it will be difficult even to meaningfully reduce the
levels of violence in Iraq
without addressing Iraq's fundamental political -- and, to a lesser
extent, economic and social -- problems. Iraq will never be peaceful,
prosperous and free of the scourge of AQI and groups
like it until Iraq's leaders properly grapple with those underlying
problems and forge reasonable
compromises to allow the country to move forward. The converse is also
true. The longer that
Iraq's fundamental political problems are allowed to fester; the longer
that Iraq's bad, old
political culture is allowed to hold sway; and the longer that Iraq's
leaders obsess over how to
beat their adversaries rather than fixing what ails the nation, the
worse the violence is likely to
get and the stronger that groups like AQI are likely to grow. In the
end, as they hope, these
groups might succeed in pushing the country back into civil war.
[. . .]
Looking back, Iraq may have reached its political, military and economic
apex in 2009 and early
2010. In 2009 Iraq held provincial elections, and in 2010 national
elections, that had resulted in
stunning victories for those parties considered the most secular, the
most vested in improving
governance and services, the least tied to the militias and the least
sectarian. They also handed
equally stunning defeats to the parties most closely tied to the
militias and the civil war. Indeed,
the militias -- Sunni and Shi'a -- were withering, as were the vast
majority of terrorist groups.
Violence and deaths were way down. Secular, peaceful, nationalistic
Iraqi leaders -- including
Sunnis like Osama al-Nujaifi and Rafe al-Issawi -- were emerging and
becoming dominant
figures in government. There was a widespread feeling that everyone had
to play by the
democratic rules and no one could get caught subverting the will of the
Iraqi people or even
being too corrupt.
All of this progress was very real, but it was also very fragile. Like a
bone that had been
fractured but was now mending, it needed a cast to protect it, hold it,
and allow the bones to knit
together and become strong. That role was played by the United States,
in particular by our
military forces in Iraq. During that time frame, it became an
increasingly symbolic role as the
drawdown in troop strength meant that we did less and less of the actual
provision of security for
Iraqis, but it was an absolutely critical role.
As long as American forces remained, Iraqis did not fear the
re-emergence of the security
vacuum or the widespread use of violence by any group -- including
whichever group controlled
the government, thereby giving it by far the greatest capacity to use
violence against its rivals.
It also meant that Iraq's political leaders had to abide by the
democratic rules of the road laid
down by the Americans. This enabled good Iraqis to act constructively,
and prevented the bad
ones from acting too destructively. Iraqis could assume that the future
would be better, not
worse, and make decisions based on their hopes, not their fears.
The problems began after Iraq's 2010 national elections. The elections
themselves were
wonderful -- the best yet. Iraqis voted overwhelmingly for Ayad Allawi's
mostly-Sunni Iraqiya
and Maliki's overwhelmingly Shi'a State of Law coalitions, the two
groups seen as most secular,
least sectarian and least tied to the militias. Of the two, Iraqiya
garnered slightly more votes.
But Maliki refused to believe that he had lost, insisting that the vote
had been rigged -- perhaps by
the Americans, his aides claimed -- and refusing to allow Allawi to
take the first turn at forming a
government. Then he pressured Iraq's high court to rule that he could
get the first shot at
forming a government, which deadlocked the entire political system. And
the United States -- and
the UN -- went along and said nothing. Rather than insist that Allawi
be given the first chance, as
is customary in most democracies and as was clearly what was best for
Iraqi democracy. The
US did nothing. Ten months of political backstabbing followed, and in
the end, the Iranians
forced Muqtada as-Sadr to back Maliki, uniting the Shi'a behind him. At
that point, the Kurds
fell into place, believing that the prime minister had to be a Shi'a,
and Iraqiya's chances were
finished.
It was also a defeat for Iraqi democracy. The message that it sent to
Iraq's people and politicians
alike was that the United States under the new Obama Administration was
no longer going to
enforce the rules of the democratic road. Washington was not going to
insist that the will of the
people win out. America was willing to step aside and allow Iraq's
traditional political culture of
pay-offs, log-rolling, threats and violence to re-emerge to determine
who would rule the country.
It undermined the reform of Iraqi politics and resurrected the specter
of the failed state.
Having backed Maliki for prime minister simply to end the embarrassing
political stalemate, the
Administration compounded its mistake by lashing itself uncritically to
his government. No
matter what Maliki did -- good, bad or indifferent -- Washington backed
him. Whether it was out
of fear of being criticized for allowing him to remain in office in the
first place, or sheer lack of
interest and a desire to simply do what was easiest and required the
least effort on the part of the US, the Administration applauded and
overlooked everything he did. Maliki certainly did some
good. He was not all bad. But he also did some very bad things -- things
that were highly
subversive of Iraqi democracy. Among the worst was to thoroughly
politicize the ISF, ousting
huge numbers of the competent, apolitical officers that the United
States had worked so hard to
put in place and replacing them with people loyal to him, regardless of
their credentials. Very
quickly, the ISF went from an apolitical force that most Iraqis trusted,
to a servant of the Maliki
government deeply distrusted by those outside the prime minister's camp.

Again, we'll cover the hearing in at least one more snapshot this week.
But the violence isn't happening in a vacuum. The foreign media in
Iraq has been far too permissive when it comes to Nouri al-Maliki,
allowing him to define what is violence, allowing him to define what
started the violence.

The fact of the matter is, in 2010, he refused to nominate people to
head the security ministries so that he could control them. Why is it
only CNN can note that this is harmful to the security situation?

A Federal District Court judge ruled on
Monday that the National Security Agency program that is systematically
keeping records of all Americans’ phone calls most likely violates
the Constitution, and he ordered the government to stop collecting data
on two plaintiffs’ personal calls and destroy the records of their
calling history.In a 68-page ruling, Judge Richard J. Leon of
the District of Columbia called the program’s technology “almost
Orwellian” and suggested that James Madison, the author of the
Constitution, would be “aghast” to learn that the government was
encroaching on liberty in such a way.

The Bill of Rights Defense Committee noted Charlie Savage's report. You can find information about BRDC at the following:

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The ACLU issued the following today:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASECONTACT: media@aclu.orgWASHINGTON – A federal court ruled today that the NSA’s mass
call-tracking program violates the Constitution. The lawsuit was filed
in Washington by activist Larry Klayman. The American Civil Liberties
Union is currently litigating a similar legal challenge in New York, ACLU v. Clapper.ACLU Deputy Legal Director Jameel Jaffer, one of two attorneys who
argued the ACLU case last month, had this reaction to today’s ruling:“This is a strongly worded and carefully reasoned decision that
ultimately concludes, absolutely correctly, that the NSA’s call-tracking
program can’t be squared with the Constitution. As Judge Leon notes,
the government’s defense of the program has relied almost entirely on a
30-year-old case that involved surveillance of a specific criminal
suspect over a period of two days. The idea that this narrow precedent
authorizes the government to place every American under permanent
surveillance is preposterous. We hope that Judge Leon’s thoughtful
ruling will inform the larger conversation about the proper scope of
government surveillance powers, especially the debate in Congress about
the reforms necessary to bring the NSA’s surveillance activities back in
line with the Constitution. The bipartisan USA Freedom Act, which has
130 co-sponsors already, would address the constitutional problems that
Judge Leon identifies.”